


A Dream of Thorns and Roses

by Tilltheendwilliwrite



Series: Bucky Barnes One Shots [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, F/M, Swearing, тэг заменён на Don't copy to another site
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-17 20:59:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16981704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tilltheendwilliwrite/pseuds/Tilltheendwilliwrite
Summary: After hearing the song Once Upon A Dream by Lana Del Rey, I had an idea. This is the brainchild of that idea.





	A Dream of Thorns and Roses

## A Bucky Barnes Adventure

* * *

> _Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,  
>  _ _Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;  
>  _ _The Raven - Edgar Allan Poe_

* * *

The blackened trees, long dead and skeletonized, stretched bare limbs into the deep grey of the quickly darkening sky. Snow, dirty and cold like ash from an ice volcano covered everything in a layer of frozen soot. The light was fading, casting everything into shadows, long and twisting into the depths of the forest.

Bucky fought the panic building in his heart. Where the hell was he, and how had he gotten here?

His breath came out in small white puffs of air, the forest around him growing colder. Turning in a slow circle, he eyed the trees with distaste. If ever there had been a spookier forest, he hadn’t seen it.

They were enormous, reaching thirty, forty feet high but there wasn’t a single branch for the first ten to fifteen feet of trunk. The smell of ash hung on them as if they’d burned in an inferno which had taken its toll and left behind a signature the forest would never recover from. Brambles with shiny black thorns appeared to writhe in his peripheral vision, but when he would turn to look, all was still.

It was fucking creepy.

As he was getting ready to try his hand at scaling one of those weird trees, figure out where the hell he was, a flash of white caught his eye. A woman was walking through the trees at the edge of the shadows.

“Hey!” Calling out, he expected her to at least look at him, but she walked on. “Hey! Dame!”

Pausing, she turned her head. Hair as black as a raven’s wing threaded through with silver, cascaded in waves around her. Skin like ivory was barely a shade lighter than the white of her long gown. The gauze of it shimmered and moved around her, a living thing, fluttering back in an unseen breeze. Her hair swept up, trailing behind her, snapping cords of living night blending with her airy dress.

“Bucky.”

Her voice caused the hair on Bucky’s neck to rise for her lips barely moved. He should never have heard that whisper, but it was as if she spoke directly in his ear.

Wolf eyes, gold and glowing, filled and flowed with tears. “Save me… Bucky…”

“How?” he cried, lurching toward her only to have the thorns twist and writhe, blocking his path.

“Find… me…”

She walked on into the darkness.

“Wait! How do I find you?” he cried. Hand outstretched, the brambles wrapped around his arm.

The thorns jabbed deep, and Bucky screamed. 

***

Bursting upright, the scream ripping from his throat, Bucky lurched out of bed. Cold sweat was dripping down his back, causing his shirt to stick to his spine. His hair was wet with it when he shoved the long locks out of his face.

Steve slammed through the door seconds later. “Bucky!”

“I’m okay, Steve.” He held up his metal hand.

“Nightmare?” Steve asked, striding closer to grip Bucky’s shoulders.

Hissing, Bucky jerked out from under Steve’s touch. The pain was intense, streaking up and down his arm to his hand.

“What the hell is that?” Steve barked, pointing at Bucky’s arm.

Lifting it to look, Bucky gaped at the thorns embedded in his flesh. “I… that’s not… possible,” he mumbled, before swaying forward, passing out in Steve’s arms.

***

Waking up in the med wing was nothing new. Waking up in the med wing with his right arm wrapped in gauze from fingertips to shoulder, however, was definitely a new experience. Blinking at the brightness, Bucky groaned.

“Welcome back, sunshine,” Bruce said, appearing at the side of his bed.

Grunting, Bucky grumbled, “The fuck happened?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing.” Reaching behind him, Bruce came back with a pair of clamps holding the wickedest looking black thorn Bucky had ever seen.

"Holy shit!”

“Dug a dozen of these out of your arm. You want to explain to me how you wound up with an arm full of thorns while sleeping?” Bruce arched a brow, peering at him over his glasses.

It came back to him with the speed of a racing freight train. “The woman!”

“There was a woman with you?” Steve asked, striding forward.

“No, not with me.” Pushing himself upright, Bucky groaned when his head throbbed.

“Easy.” Bruce pressed him back down. “There was some serious mojo in those thorns. Haven’t got it all figured out yet.”

“Poison?”

“Not sure. Steve said you went down like a felled tree, though. Best to take it slow. So far, there are no lasting effects on your vitals, but we can’t be sure until the tests come back on the thorns what they were meant to do.”

Bucky conceded to staying put but elevated the head of the bed, so he didn’t feel like such an invalid.

“Tell us about this… woman.”

Steve’s face was full of concern, something Bucky hadn’t seen in regards to him in some time. “I was dreaming. There was this creepy as fuck forest,” he explained. Giving them the details, Bucky rubbed unconsciously at his right arm.

“I don’t like the sound of this,” Steve muttered. “Sounds like someone’s messing with your head.”

They all knew what happened the last time someone messed with his head, but this was different. Shaking his, Bucky thought about the woman. “Even if she is… in my head, she needs _help_ , Steve. She wants me to find her.”

“How?” Bruce asked.

“I don’t know yet.”

“Is that itchy?” Bruce motioned toward his bandaged arm.

Bucky blinked. “Huh?”

“The arm. You’ve been rubbing at it almost since you woke up.”

Frowning down at it, Bucky lifted his left hand off his arm. “Yeah. Guess it is.”

Bruce instantly reached for it, beginning to unwrap the bandages. Once Bucky’s wrist came into view, they all inhaled sharply.

“The fuck is that?” Bucky barked. Black lines darkened his skin.

Grabbing a pair of scissors, Bruce ran them up the length of the wrapping, splitting it in two. It fell apart, revealing the extent of what had once been Bucky’s mostly unmarked flesh arm.

“Son of a bitch,” Steve muttered, gaping at the tattoo now snaking its way over Bucky’s skin.

“What the hell is it?” The intricate lines and patterns would have been beautiful… if it was on someone else’s arm.

Peering at it, Bruce turned Bucky’s wrist back and forth. “I think… it’s a map.” Brushing the bandages out of the way, he pulled Bucky’s arm up and out. “FRIDAY?”

“Yes, Dr. Banner?”

“Full image scan of Sergeant Barnes’ arm. Reproduce on a two-dimensional plane, if you would.”

“Anything for you, doctor.”

Bruce ignored the smirk on Steve’s face. “Thank you, FRIDAY.”

“You flirting with the AI now?” Bucky teased.

“Shut up both of you,” Bruce muttered.

The _map_ appeared on the screen at the foot of Bucky’s bed. All three of them stared at it.

“Either of you know where that is?” Bucky asked.

“No.” Bruce and Steve spoke together.

“Great,” he sighed. “I’ve got an arm full of map, and no way to find… shit, I don’t even know her name.”

“FRIDAY, begin cross-referencing this map with matching terrain.” Steve glanced at Bucky, the worry still present. “Not sure you should be looking for… _her_ anyway.”

“Steve.”

“Hear me out, pal,” Steve said, holding up his hand. “What if this is a trick? What if HYDRA’s got some new way of tapping into your head to get you back? This could be a trap.”

Hesitating, Bucky gave a slow nod. “Yeah, maybe.” But Steve hadn’t seen her face. Hadn’t heard her voice. Hadn’t watched the tears track from her stunning wolf eyes.

“We’ll look, Buck, but you’re not going alone.”

“Captain’s orders?” Bucky asked, smirking a little.

“If I have to, jerk.”

“Punk,” Bucky muttered, giving his agreement.

***

It was as cold the second time as it had been the first.

Glaring at the trees, ashy snow, and his own frosty breath, Bucky called out, “Hello?”

There was no answer, but he didn’t wait. Striding forward, he wasn’t surprised when the brambles rose up to create a wall. They’d done that last time he’d tried to leave this clearing, and he’d paid the price. “Hey! You out there?”

“Bucky…” The whisper came from behind him and was much more audible.

Jerkin around, he stared at her standing a few feet away. She was even smaller than he’d thought, head barely reaching his chest. It sent a protective surge through him.

“What did you do to me?” Stepping closer, he noted the way she lifted her chin, not retreating in the face of his question and looming posture.

“Find me… Bucky…”

“I don’t know how!” Taking another step, he caught her scent. Roses. Sultry, sexy, roses.

Her hand lifted. Tapered fingers with ragged nails pointed at his arm.

“I know it’s a map, but it doesn’t match any we have.” The final step saw him standing inches from her. Going slow, he lightly touched her hand. It was icy cold. “Give me something I can use.”

“You have everything you need,” she whispered, her fingers trailing down his arm — her hand linked with his. “Help me… Bucky.”

“I want to, doll, but you ain’t making this easy,” he grumbled.

A smile twitched her lips. “Knowing you’re looking… is enough.”

“Who are you?”

“They call me Zorya Vechernyaya.” 

Bucky inhaled, dragging her scent deeper. “Evening star.”

“But my name is Aurora.” Barely had the words left her lips when her head whipped up. Her wolf eyes glowed, and she growled, a sound which shivered through Bucky. “They are coming. I must go.”

Grabbing her arms, Bucky kept her right where she was. “Who’s coming? Where are you? Where are we? Why won’t you tell me anything?”

Her hands landed on his chest, and he was falling into the pools of her eyes. “You walk my dreams with me, James Barnes. I have searched the world over for someone I could connect with. That person is you. Find me. Follow the map. Find me.”

Waking with a start, Bucky slammed his fist down on the bed beside him. “Aurora. I will find you.”

***

It took a month. A month of searching through every chart, every map, every satellite image they could get their hands on, and every night he walked in dreams with Aurora.

To say he wasn’t in love with her would have been a lie. The more time they spent in dreams, the less time he wanted to spend awake, but with each return to her, he grew more frantic. 

The life was dimming in her eyes. Her already pale skin was now sickly. She was thinner than she had been, growing weaker by the hour. The bruises kept appearing on her skin. Hand shaped ones where someone had gripped her too tightly.

She never said why, never admitted to what was happening, but Bucky wasn’t stupid. 

Someone was hurting her, and now, it seemed, they were starving her as well.

But finally, they had found it. In an obscure area of Eastern Russia, a tiny area off the beaten path and deep in the mountains of the Verkhoyansk Range, FRIDAY had managed to match the map on Bucky’s arm to one from three hundred years ago found in an ancient scroll in some obscure language no one could read anymore.

It made no sense, but Bucky wasn’t about to question it. All he knew was he had a location and once they were on the ground Stark would be able to take the map, and three hundred years of changing terrain, and get him to his girl.

On the jet, the team anxious and waiting, Bucky settled back onto the mobile med unit. Everyone had long stopped questioning whether he was crazy to be doing this after Bruce had hooked him up to some sort of machine or other and monitored his brain activity, proving he was far more active than he should be when sleeping. One need only look at the tattoo on his arm for proof in his mind, but he’d given in to the urging to be sure. 

When Wanda had tried to slip in while he dreamed, she’d caught glimpses of Aurora, the forest, and his dream before Bucky’s Evening Star had shoved the Scarlet Witch right out of his head. 

Aurora had apologized once he’d explained, but Wanda hadn’t bothered to try again. There was no malice in Aurora’s intentions. Only a deep-seated need for help. 

Now, as he made to sleep, to dream of his wolf eyed beauty, Wanda settled at his side. She would watch over him, monitor his vitals, but otherwise wouldn’t interfere. He needed to tell Aurora to be ready. 

They were on their way.

*** 

The forest was crumbling. The snap of branches breaking free was swiftly followed by the crash of them slamming to the ground where they disintegrated into more ash. It was so cold, Bucky shivered for the first time in years. 

“Aurora!” he called out. 

A rustling sound had him spinning to look at the retreating brambles. They’d never done that before. No matter how many times he’d been here, walked here, he had never been allowed to leave the clearing. 

When an entire tree came down behind him, Bucky lurched forward into a run, sprinting down the now open path. “Aurora!”

Shadows appeared to reach at him from the darkness, thorns catching on his clothing, but when tree or branch began to topple toward him, those once dangerous brambles rose up to protect him. 

Flickering orange light glowed in the distance, causing him to slow to a cautious jog. “Aurora?” 

The last of the brambles parted. In the center of an all-new clearing was a large stone slab, surrounded by hundreds of candles. Upon it… lay his Aurora. 

“Dollface! No!” He scrambled up the narrow path to the base of the slab and bent over her, pressing his hands down on the cold stone.

Her breathing was shallow at best. The dark circles had become sunken eyes and nearly blue bruises. Her skin was so pale the contrast of her veins was like ink spilling over her flesh.

“Baby! Baby, wake up!” Touching her cheek, Bucky gasped at the frozen temperature. She looked and felt as if she walked the line between life and death. “Don’t let go, doll. Don’t you give up on me,” he whispered. 

Cupping her icy cheeks, he pressed his forehead to hers. “I’m coming for you, Aurora. I found you. Hold on a little longer.” Feeling the wetness of his tears on his face, he paid them no mind. “Wait for me,” he whispered, pressing the softest kiss to her frozen lips.

Waking, Bucky sat up to look at his team. “Fly faster. She’s dying.”

***

The jet landed, and Bucky was first down the ramp. Beneath the light of a full moon, he watched his breath puff into the air. The snow gleamed silver, beautiful on any other day, but not now. Not tonight when Aurora, his Evening Star’s life hung in the balance. 

“Stark?” 

“There.” Tony pointed up the mountain. “Heat readings. Too many to be a herd of wildlife.” 

“You have no idea what we’re walking into?” Steve asked for what felt like the millionth time.

“No, Steve. I told you, she couldn’t tell me.” And he’d asked. God, he’d asked, but something about the magic she was using to get to him, and the magic being used to hold her where she was, kept her silent.

“Wanda?” Steve looked to the Scarlet Witch instead.

“There is… a flicker of something. It’s very faint. But I feel…” she shuddered, a sign nothing good was coming.

“Then let’s get on with it.” Shrugging out of her coat, Nat threw it to Bruce who would stay behind unless they needed him.

“We do this fast and quiet. Vision, get us a visual.” Steve nodded to the android who phased out and flew off.

Tony and Sam went high, the calm and cold air allowing the sound of their suit and wings to echo farther than usual, while Clint, Steve, Natasha, Wanda, and Bucky began a quick jog through the snow, both super soldiers cutting trail as it was easier for them.

Halfway up the mountain, Vision returned. “Captain, we may have a problem.”

“What?” Bucky snarled, no longer caring about anything but getting to Aurora. His arm was throbbing, the tattoo feeling like it was screaming in warning.

“It’s a previously unknown HYDRA facility… in a castle carved back into the stone.”

“Fuck!” Bucky snapped, knowing things had just gotten a whole lot harder.

***

The siege didn’t last as long as Bucky had thought it would. Old and crumbling, a few blasts from well-aimed Iron Man missiles had the walls which surrounded it coming down fast. Caught unaware as HYDRA was, the team was already through the opening and into the courtyard before the alarms even began to sound.

While Sam and Tony stayed outside to pick off the stragglers and watch for reinforcements, he headed for the keep.

Bucky slammed through the outer door of the castle, tearing it clean from its hinges with the force of his blow. It took out the four agents waiting beyond when it flew twenty feet to skid over stone floors and slam into the stairwell.

Steve’s shield flying off the walls took out the rest. “Split up. We need to figure out where she’s being kept.”

“On it!” Nat and Clint went left. 

Vision and Wanda up to the second floor.

Something pulled at Bucky who stalked straight ahead. When the soldier leapt out at him, he slammed his metal fist into the man’s face.

“Bucky, calm down. We’ll find her.” 

“I know.” Beneath the sterile scent of antiseptics, the musty smell of ancient stones and rotting tapestries, the fragrance of roses wafted to his nose. Breathing deep, he smiled for he could smell her. “This way.”

“You sure?” Steve jogged along at his side, punching the soldier who leapt out at him.

Nodding, Bucky continued to follow the scent, brutally efficient in his execution when he took down a soldier or deflected the bullets aimed his way. He was a man on a mission, intent in his focus. Steve would cast him a concerned glance once in a while, but Bucky just continued on.

When he rounded the final corner, the strength of her scent slammed into his face and made him stumble.

“Bucky!” Steve grabbed him by the arms.

“Can’t you smell that?” he asked, leaning against the wall.

“Smell what?”

Bucky shook his head, feeling nearly giddy. He was happy Steve couldn’t scent her. She was for him, no one else. Her sultry fragrance of roses was for him and him alone.

Pushing away from Steve, he shoved open the final set of doors and stopped dead in his tracks.

“Aurora…” slipped painfully from his lips.

Strapped to a gurney, she was hooked up to multiple monitors. Tubes and wires ran from what seemed like every conceivable point of bare skin. Her head was shorn of hair, a fuzzy cap of black all that was left of her once glorious hair.

“Bruce…” Steve’s voice was hoarse. “We need you. We found Aurora.”

***

The doctor who had been seeing to her care had refused to assist no matter how Bucky had threatened him in stern, biting Russian.

Between Bruce, Bucky, and Natasha, they managed to decipher the medical file hanging from the foot of Aurora’s bed.

She’d been in a coma for three months. Known on file as Zorya Vechernyaya, she’d been another of Strucker’s experiments, picked up when her powers began to manifest ten years prior when a host of inhumans had started to appear, but unlike Wanda and Pietro in the beginning, Aurora had not been willing.

Once the experiments had made her powerful enough, she’d raged against her captors, the thorns he’d come in contact with part of her mutation. She could turn day into night and had killed dozens of them before HYDRA had put a bullet in her. 

She’d been so dangerous, they put her under and kept her there.

For three months.

Sliding down the wall, Bucky sat, head on knees, silent tears pouring down his face.

He had only been dreaming about her a month, and now her condition was so deteriorated Bruce wasn’t sure bringing her out of her coma was a good idea.

They’d hardly fed her, only enough to keep her alive. It was the reason she bruised so easily. What he’d thought were marks from being beaten were marks from them moving her to keep her muscles from atrophying.

It hadn’t mattered, though, because now… her body was failing. 

Bruce had been muttering about reduced brain activity, commenting on how her mental powers were weakened and that was likely the reason she couldn’t tell him what was happening or where she was. Add to it the map they’d found, a huge, ancient thing hanging on the wall of the medieval castle just outside the cells where they kept their prisoners, empty of others thankfully, left Bucky struggling to comprehend how the magic he’d thought he’d been part of was all so easily explained away.

“Bucky.” Steve crouched down in front of him.

Snuffling, Bucky wiped his face. “Yeah?”

“Bruce has got her stabilized as best he can. We’re going to take her home with us.”

With a nod, Bucky shuffled back to his feet.

***

Three weeks later after much struggle, Aurora was improving physically. Bruce had kept her in the coma, not wanting to stress her, and Helen had flown in to check her over.

The most worrisome part of it all for Bucky was he no longer dreamed of her. Every night he went to sleep wishing, praying to awaken in the strange forest, but every morning he woke to his cold and lonely bed. He’d never missed someone as much as he did her.

In a month of night long conversations, he’d learned so much, said so much, revealed so much.

Now it was as if he’d lost a piece of himself. A part of his soul had withered with the loss of her dark light.

Today, though, Bucky woke with excitement in his blood.

Bruce was going to wake her up.

***

Pacing back and forth, Bucky snapped, “What’s the holdup?”

“Keep your shorts on!” Bruce growled, eyeing him with annoyance. “There are test to run, precautions to take. You don’t want me to wake her up and have her have a heart attack, do you?”

Bucky shook his head.

“Then sit down, hold her hand, and shut the hell up!” Bruce pointed at the chair.

His heart beat so hard, Bucky could feel it banging against his chest. They’d decided there should only be Bruce and Bucky when she woke, not wanting to overwhelm her with a bunch of new faces.

Gently he lifted her hand to his cheek. Touching her felt surreal. Seeing her here while he was awake and she was dreaming was a dream come true.

“Soon, darlin'.” He kissed her palm.

Her ragged nails had been pared and cleaned. The crop of fuzz on her head was now almost an inch long, and yes, it was growing in as black as night and as silver as the moon.

“Okay,” Bruce said, his voice much softer than before, “let’s wake her up.”

Holding his breath, Bucky watched as Bruce pumped some fluid through her IV. The monitor continued to beep, slow and steady, her heart strong. Though he looked at all the machines, Bucky couldn’t tell if anything was changing, if anything was happening at all.

Then, she took a breath, a deep one.

“Aurora?”

Her eyes fluttered. The hand he held closed over his.

“Aurora, doll, it’s Bucky. Wake up, sweetheart. You’re safe. I found you.”

Slowly, her lashes lifted revealing her wolf eyes, gold and glowing. She looked from him to Bruce, to the facility around her. “Where… where… am I?”

“You’re safe, Aurora. You’re in the Avengers compound. HYDRA can’t get to you here.” Squeezing her hand, Bucky smiled. “I found you. I found you like I said I would.”

She blinked at him, then pulled her hand free. “Who… are you?”

Bucky’s world shattered.

***

He was tearing into his fourth heavy bag when Steve walked in. Stripped down to sweats and a wife beater, the tattoo on his arm was a reminder of all he had lost.

“You okay, Buck?”

Bucky only grunted.

“Bruce said there’s a chance-”

“Stop, Steve.”

“Look, pal.”

Bucky’s fist went straight through the heavy bag. “It’s over. She doesn’t know me, but she’s safe. That’s all that matters.”

“Get to know her now,” Steve encouraged.

“It won’t be the same,” Bucky whispered, tugging the bag from his hand and shaking the sand free.

“But-”

“It won’t be the same!” Turning from Steve, Bucky tore the tape from his right hand. “You don’t understand! It was magic and urgency in that place. There was only us! It was perfect, and now it’s gone. She doesn’t remember me, and once she’s healthy, she’ll want to go home.” 

Wherever that was. She hadn’t told him, and now he was glad. He wasn't sure he would have been able to leave her alone if he knew where she lived.

“Bucky…” Steve sighed. “Don’t lose what you could have over what might have been.”

A laugh full of despair burst from Bucky’s throat. “I told her. I told her what happened. How we’d met. How she gave me this.” He shook his right arm. “She looked at me like I was crazy. Then she looked at me with fear.”

Steve’s hand came down on his sweaty shoulder. “She is scared. She went from being a prisoner experimented on by HYDRA, to shot, to here. That would scare anyone. Give her time, Bucky.”

“I don’t know how,” Bucky sighed. “I love her. She loved me. God damn it, Steven!” Brushing off his hand, Bucky stomped away toward his room and his shower.

***

Three days later, Aurora was on her feet and given a room of her own. She’d latched on to Wanda, magic calling to magic, and Natasha for the Widow offered protection, unasked for but present, as a barrier between the woman with the short cap of salt and pepper hair and the men in the room.

Her scent, the one of hothouse roses, seductive and sensual, had become like burning petals. It was the fear, her fear, which muddled the scent driving Bucky insane.

Unable to stand it one more night, being surrounded by her scent, a scent no one else could smell, he’d gone to walk through the woods. The shadows offered him some solace when his dreams no longer did. His heart was broken, unable to heal. The longer he was around her without being able to touch her, the more painful it became. But the thought of her leaving was even worse.

Through the first layer of trees, he came upon a bramble patch, the vines thick and black, the thorns sharp and shiny. Aurora had been practicing, getting her strength back.

Stopping, Bucky knelt and reached for the longest thorn. It didn’t move, didn’t try to stick him at least, so he stroked it like he wanted to stroke Aurora’s cheek. “I miss you,” he whispered. The pain in his heart sent tears tracking his cheeks. “God how I miss you, my evening star.”

Caressing out to the tip, the thorn pricked his finger. A single drop of blood welled and trickled down the thorn to its base. “Even now you make me bleed for you.” From his finger or his heart, it didn’t matter. He would give her every drop in his body if it would have her looking at him like she once had.

Bringing his finger to his mouth, Bucky sucked on it as he got to his feet and walked away.

He didn’t notice the woman with the wolf eyes watching him from the shadows, nor the rose which bloomed to life near the thorn which had pricked his finger.

***

Climbing into bed, Bucky collapsed with a massive flop. He’d walked for hours, the night now half gone, trying to tire himself out enough to sleep. Once he’d hated sleeping. HYDRA laced dreams had haunted him, but time and distance, counselling and friends, had helped him overcome the aversion.

Aurora’s arrival in his dreams had shown him how beautiful they could be. Her departure… had him dreading sleep once more.

Too tired to care, Bucky let go of the day and all his disappointments, letting the heartache rest until tomorrow.

But, when he opened his eyes, the trees, dark as night, rose around him. Inhaling sharply, not daring to hope, he turned a slow circle.

High above in what were once barren branches, now night darkened leaves swayed. The sky was indigo laced with stars. Brambles still writhed and twisted, but the once ash and snow-covered ground was soft and green, the air was warm, and the brambles bloomed with roses as red as blood.

“Hello, Bucky.”

Spinning around, he gaped at Aurora. The white of her gown had been replaced with one so dark a blue it was nearly black. Her raven wing and moonbeam hair swung around her, and her wolf eyes gleamed with recognition.

“Aurora?” he took a tentative step forward. When she didn’t retreat, he took another, and another, until he stood before her.

She reached up and caressed his jaw. “I’m sorry for forgetting you.”

Gripping her upper arms, he jerked her to his chest and held on. “You remembered? How!?”

Her hand stroked his hair. “My brambles. When you pricked yourself tonight, you brought back my roses. With the roses came memories and I am finally healed. I’ve been waiting for you to go to sleep.”

“And when we wake up?” he asked hesitantly.

Pulling back, she caressed his cheek again. “Wake up and find out.”

***

Bolting upright, Bucky never made it out of bed for a body landed in his lap. At any other time, he would have reacted with violence, but the sultry scent of roses now laced with heat and spice filled his nose. He reached for hair that wasn’t there, having not yet grown back, landing on soft skin covered by a thin tank top instead.

“Baby,” he breathed out, burying his face in her throat, shaking with the force of his emotions. “I missed you so much.”

“I’m so sorry, Bucky.”

Placing a slow kiss on her pulse point, the place which smelled so strongly of roses, Bucky lifted his head to peer into glowing wolf eyes. “I don’t care. You’re back, that’s all that matters.”

Her smile bloomed wide. “You found me.”

“Yeah.” His smile grew in return. “I had to. I had to meet you.”

“You did meet me.”

“In a dream. My dream.”

“Our dream,” she whispered, leaning down to kiss him.

***

The next day when the compound woke to find vines and brambles had woven their way around the building, no one complained for Bucky had found his Aurora, and now everyone could smell the roses.

**_-The End-_ **


End file.
